NASA administrator Michael Griffin defends the space agency's programs, including plans for a permanent moon base and manned missions to Mars. He also says that while NASA studies climate change, the agency has no authorization to "take actions to affect climate change in either one way or another."​

The zinger:

"I have no doubt that … a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change. First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."​

Griffin's statement has attracted attacks from the left and praise from the right. Griffin did not deny that global warming is occurring or that we are causing it: The right is a bit premature in its praise. He merely advocated caution in doing something about global warming. It appears the left can't handle that.

Alright, so we have no business trying to fix global warming. Now ask yourself: "Do I want my grandchildren living underwater?"

Well, at least we want have a water shortage problem. Now if the answer is
"no, I don't want my grandchildren living underwater", what can be done about it? (I'd move them to a higher elevation). If the whole world quit burning fossil fuels today would that cause the earth to get cooler? Would the earth continue getting warmer? Would the temp stay the same?

My bet is that the earth would continue to get warmer, regardless. But, just like the GW via mankind, it's speculation.

I think Mr. Griffin's comments are right on! Global climate has been changing for millions of years and will continue to change no matter what mankind does. As in all prior cycles, man must adapt to survive by moving to higher ground or higher or lower latitudes to find comfortable space to live.

The real question is: "are we (mankind) doing anything to cause very rapid changes in global climate?" If so, can we do anything about it? The two major sources of CO2 are deforestation and fosil fuel combustion for energy production. We should be able to mitigate both activities with rational economics. Carbon taxation may not be the best way, however. I see a potential in methane production from sub-sea hydrate formations and CO2 sequestration in sub-sea hydrate "mines" that had been used to produce the methane. The global methane hydrate supply is huge! It should be able to replace almost all other hydrocarbon fuels and reduce CO2 production enormously!

As we evolve into the Hydrogen economy methane steam reforming/shift conversion and CO2 extraction will allow easy CO2 hydrate sequestration.

okay here we go again. For those who know me, nothing new here, carry on.

"I have no doubt that … a trend of global warming exists.

It may be observed that the trend of lower trophosphere satellite temperatures has stabilized as of 2002. So it's not warming today in general. Anyway, intented here is something else, the idea that increasing CO2 increases the surface temperature. I agree. Peeing in the ocean makes it warmer. Definitely.

The clean physical warming effect of CO2 can be calculated to be about one degree celsius per doubling after thermal equilibrium is regained, that is, which takes several decades to centuries. The instanteneous warming effect is only 0.7 degrees. So to get the scary 3 +/- 1 degrees Celsius of Hansen et al a boost is needed from "positive feedback". This positive feedback is supposed to have acted in the ice ages but it is refuted along three independent lines.

This means that the nett feedback is negative which means that the actual increase of temperature will not exceed one degree per doubling CO2. I believe the term here is underwhelming.

I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change. First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."

Even if the doubling temperature increase was high enough to worry, there is still the Lomborg principle, the best of our efforts would delay the alleged inevitable a few years. Is it worth to cripple the society to gain a bit delay, or is it better to strenghten society and be ready to fight the consequences directly?

About melting ice sheets and sea levels. The Earth appears to be currently recovering from it's coldest era in the last 10,000 years, the ninetheenth century. That will melt off a few glaciers, what else is new? Remember that the ice sheets survived the early Holocene Thermal Optimum with flying colors, a period of 3-4000 years when the Earth was 2-5 degrees warmer than today.

okay here we go again. For those who know me, nothing new here, carry on.

It may be observed that the trend of lower trophosphere satellite temperatures has stabilized as of 2002. So it's not warming today in general. Anyway, intented here is something else, the idea that increasing CO2 increases the surface temperature. I agree. Peeing in the ocean makes it warmer. Definitely.

The clean physical warming effect of CO2 can be calculated to be about one degree celsius per doubling after thermal equilibrium is regained, that is, which takes several decades to centuries. The instanteneous warming effect is only 0.7 degrees. So to get the scary 3 +/- 1 degrees Celsius of Hansen et al a boost is needed from "positive feedback". This positive feedback is supposed to have acted in the ice ages but it is refuted along three independent lines.

This means that the nett feedback is negative which means that the actual increase of temperature will not exceed one degree per doubling CO2. I believe the term here is underwhelming.

Even if the doubling temperature increase was high enough to worry, there is still the Lomborg principle, the best of our efforts would delay the alleged inevitable a few years. Is it worth to cripple the society to gain a bit delay, or is it better to strenghten society and be ready to fight the consequences directly?

About melting ice sheets and sea levels. The Earth appears to be currently recovering from it's coldest era in the last 10,000 years, the ninetheenth century. That will melt off a few glaciers, what else is new? Remember that the ice sheets survived the early Holocene Thermal Optimum with flying colors, a period of 3-4000 years when the Earth was 2-5 degrees warmer than today.

A newly released study indicates that the climate scientists at NASA have a big disagreement with Griffin.

On Wednesday, Griffin's own agency put out a news release about a research paper written by nearly 50 NASA and Columbia University scientists and published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. The paper shows how "human-made greenhouse gases have brought the Earth's climate close to critical tipping points, with potentially dangerous consequences for the planet."

White House science adviser Jack Marburger said he was not disturbed by Griffin's remarks, but distanced them from President Bush, who on Thursday announced an international global warming proposal.

I haven't seen Bush's global warming proposal. If it involves mounting a thermostat on the atlantic conveyer and appointing a global warming czar I wouldn't be surprised.

Here's what Bob Park said on his weekly column on Bush's proposal and Griffin's statement

President Bush rejected the Kyoto treaty six years ago, saying it would "harm our economy." "Climate change" did not show up in Bush's vocabulary until his 2007 State-of-the-Union address. Yesterday, however, pressured to take action, he trotted out his "new international climate change framework," declaring "the United States takes this issue seriously." Other leaders at next week's G-8 summit, who are leaning toward a bold German plan to reduce greenhouse emissions 50% by 2050, are unlikely to be impressed. The plan outlined by the White House is classic Bush: it contained no concrete targets or dates, no enforcement mechanism, no penalties for noncompliance, and it wouldn't take effect until four years after Bush leaves office.

Just two hours before the President's remarks, Michael Griffin, the man Bush picked to head the agency charged with collecting climate change data, was interviewed on National Public Radio. He defended cuts in programs to monitor climate change: It frees resources for a manned moon base, and a new crew transportation vehicle to take astronauts to the Moon, Mars and the space station. He saw no need to take action against global warming. "Who has the privilege of deciding that this is the best climate for all other human beings," he asked? Just two months ago the IPCC report detailed the enormous cost of global warming on human life. Where has he been?

So as long as the bare minimum number survive that we can still call it the human race (species), that's cool? I dunno, I personally have higher goals in mind for humanity.

There was no such thing as bare minimum numbers surviving. Several thousands of years ago the whole of the Sahara, Egypt, Mesopotamia had ideal climates. Mediterenian and moist. The land of milk and honey. The crate of several civilisations. Then the big drought started and after that several civilisations perished under averse climate conditions. All without anybody regulating anything with carbon dioxide.

The debate is apparently only heating up. The latest NASA research is below, tipping points and all.

Tipping points can occur during climate change when the climate reaches a state such that strong amplifying feedbacks are activated by only moderate additional warming. This study finds that global warming of 0.6ºC in the past 30 years has been driven mainly by increasing greenhouse gases, and only moderate additional climate forcing is likely to set in motion disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet and Arctic sea ice. Amplifying feedbacks include increased absorption of sunlight as melting exposes darker surfaces and speedup of iceberg discharge as the warming ocean melts ice shelves that otherwise inhibit ice flow

Staff: Mentor

This is an excellent article written by Prof Bob Carter, a geologist at James Cook University, Queensland, engaged in paleoclimate research. I suggest you read the article in it's entirety before commenting.

There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998

For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.

Does something not strike you as odd here? That industrial carbon dioxide is not the primary cause of earth's recent decadal-scale temperature changes doesn't seem at all odd to many thousands of independent scientists. They have long appreciated - ever since the early 1990s, when the global warming bandwagon first started to roll behind the gravy train of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - that such short-term climate fluctuations are chiefly of natural origin. Yet the public appears to be largely convinced otherwise. How is this possible?

Yes, there has been a lot of discussion about this paper elsewhere. Bob told that the title was invented by a brilliant sub editor. He had never said something like that. Other than that, there is the discussion of starting point bias. 1998 had the strong El Nino but that was followed by a prolonged La Nina. In fact there are the other ENSO events and some volcanic cooling from La Pinotuba and La Chichon volcanoes that biased the record, so you could find any trend you wanted.

I pointed out earlier that the global temperature record is trendless since Jan 2002 with very little ENSO activity. But that doesn't say anything for the future.